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The Davis Sisters From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search The Davis Sisters was a gospel group founded by Ruth ("Baby Sis") Davis and featuring her sisters Thelma, Audrey and Alfreda. Imogene Greene joined the group in 1950, and was later replaced by Jackie Verdell when Greene left to join the Caravans. They are not to be confused with the 1950s country music act also known as The Davis Sisters (country), which launched the career of Skeeter Davis.Raised in the Fire-Baptized Holiness Church in Philadelphia, the Davis Sisters were one of the first female groups to sing "hard gospel" of the sort being pioneered by the Dixie Hummingbirds and other male quartets of the day. They achieved a big sound, managing to sound like a choir behind the lead singer by positioning themselves several steps behind the microphone.Their fellow artists typically praised their singing as spirit-filled. Ruth Davis' solos were also overpowering in their own way; her recordings of songs such as "Jesus Steps Right In" and "Too Close to Heaven" disclose the glory of her instrument, a huge,wide ranging metallic contralto of great beauty and extraordinary power and force in squalling. The Davis Sisters attracted two great singers in their most fruitful periods to help fill out their sound: Imogene Green, who possessed a husky alto of great sensuous beauty and the phenomenal Jackie Verdell who replaced Green in 1955. She brought a mezzo-soprano of intense brightness and clarity to the group; few singers could match her in the mournful "gospel blues" genre; she would demolish churches with her renditions of "Lord Don't Leave Me" and "Following Him". The Davis Sisters also accompanied their singing with the sort of "acting out" that other singers, such as Dorothy Love Coates and the Ward Singers later made famous; the Davis Sisters were heavily influenced at this time by Gertrude Ward, the organizing spirit behind the Ward Singers. Ray Charles also modeled the sound of his backup group, the Raelettes, on groups such as the Davis Sisters and the Caravans.The group organized in 1945, when Ruth was seventeen years old, her sister Thelma was fifteen, Audrey was fourteen and Alfreda was only ten. They began recording on Gotham Records in 1949, then moved to Savoy Records in 1955. After achieving success in the 1950s, the group was rocked by the death of Thelma Davis in 1956, then the passing of their exceptional piano accompanist Curtis Dublin in 1965, followed by Ruth Davis' death in 1970. The group never recovered from Ruth's death but recorded several more albums together sporadically into the 1980's.----------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------ Dubbed "The Thunderbolt of the Middle West" by his mentor, the legendary Willie Mae Ford Smith, Brother Joe May was arguably the greatest male soloist in the history of gospel music; a tenor whose dramatic sense of showmanship was surpassed only by his unparalleled command of vocal dynamics and projection, he possessed a voice of unimaginable range and power, moving from a whisper to a scream without the slightest suggestion of effort. May was born in Macon, Mississippi on November 9, 1912; raised in the Church of God denomination -- where all men are called "Brother," hence his stage name -- he began singing at the age of nine, later joining the Little Church Out on the Hills' senior choir. His subsequent tenure as a soloist with the Church of God Quartet solidified his strong reputation throughout the Southern gospel circuit.After graduating high school, May worked as a day laborer in Macon before he and his family relocated to East St. Louis, Illinois in 1941, at which time he hired on at a chemical plant. In the St. Louis area he became a protege of the pioneering Smith, and with her aid honed his sense of phrasing, modeling his own vocal acrobatics on hers; their connection was so strong that May even copied her theatrical performing style. Smith was also the director of the Soloists' Bureau of songwriter Thomas A. Dorsey's National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses, at whose conventions May began to build a name for himself throughout the country; during one such convention in Los Angeles in 1949, he came to the attention of Specialty Records talent scout J.W. Alexander, and upon signing to the label cut his first session later that same year, scoring a major hit with his debut release "Search Me Lord."May's initial success allowed him to quit his day job by 1950, and he began touring the nation, often performing alongside the likes of the Soul Stirrers and the Pilgrim Travelers. With his titanic voice and commanding stage presence, he was often called "the male Mahalia Jackson," a comparison suggested even by Jackson herself. However, despite his popularity -- both "Search Me Lord" and 1950's "Do You Know Him?" were estimated to have sold over one million copies each, making him Specialty's best-selling artist of the period -- May never crossed over to white audiences, the ultimate measure of commerical success at that time. Despite acknowledging Bessie Smith as a major early influence, May also refused to pursue a career as a secular blues singer, and his adamant rejection of all musical traditions but gospel likely played a role in his exit from Specialty in 1958.Now a free agent, May quickly signed with the Nashboro label, where he also began recording many of his own original compositions. As a result of the Nashville-based company's regional focus, the majority of his subsequent live appearances were scheduled across the Deep South, where his fame continued to grow enormously in the years to follow. An extended stretch of the early 1960s also found May starring in the musical Black Nativity in the company of Marion Williams, and after playing Broadway the production toured the U.S. and Europe. After its run was completed, May returned to the South, where his health began to slowly fail; regardless, he maintained his strenuous touring pace, keeping his declining condition a secret even from family members. Finally, while en route to a performance in Thomasville, Georgia, May suffered a massive stroke and died on July 14, 1972 at the age of 60.--------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------- Born Rosetta Nubin in Cotton Plant, Arkansas, she began performing at age four, billed as "Little Rosetta Nubin, the singing and guitar playing miracle", accompanying her mother, Church of God in Christ (COGIC) evangelist Katie Bell Nubin, who played mandolin and preached at tent revivals throughout the South. Exposed to both blues and jazz both in the South and after her family moved to Chicago in the late 1920s, she played blues and jazz in private, while performing gospel music in public settings. Her unique style reflected those secular influences: she bent notes the way that jazz artists did and picked guitar like Memphis Minnie.Rosetta also crossed over to secular music in other ways. After marrying COGIC preacher Thomas Thorpe (from which "Tharpe" is a misspelling) in 1934 and moving to New York City, she recorded four sides with Decca Records backed by "Lucky" Millinder's jazz orchestra. Her records caused an immediate furore: many churchgoers were shocked by the mixture of sacred and secular music, but secular audiences loved them. Appearances in John Hammond's 1938 extravaganza "From Spirituals To Swing", at the Cotton Club and Café Society and with Cab Calloway and Benny Goodman made her even more popular. Songs like "This Train" and "Rock Me", which combined gospel themes with bouncy up-tempo arrangements, became smash hits among audiences with little previous exposure to gospel music.Tharpe continued recording during World War II, one of only two gospel artists able to record V-discs for troops overseas. Her song "Strange Things Happening Every Day", recorded in 1944 with Sammy Price, Decca's house boogie woogie pianist, showcased her virtuosity as a guitarist and her witty lyrics and delivery. It was also the first gospel song to make Billboard's "race records" Top Ten--something that Sister Rosetta Tharpe accomplished several more times in her career.After the war Decca paired her with Marie Knight, a Sanctified shouter with a strong contralto and a more subdued style than Tharpe. Their hit "Up Above My Head" showed both of them to great advantage: Knight provided the response to Tharpe in traditional call and response format, then took the role that would have been assigned to a bass in a male quartet after Tharpe's solo. They toured the gospel circuit for a number of years, during which Tharpe was so popular that she attracted 25,000 paying customers to her wedding to her manager Russell Morrison (her third marriage), followed by a vocal performance, at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. in 1951.Their popularity took a sudden downturn, however, when they recorded several blues songs in the early 1950s. Knight attempted afterwards to cross over to popular music, while Tharpe remained in the church, but rebuffed by many of her former fans. Retreating to Europe, Tharpe gradually returned to the gospel circuit, although at nowhere near her former celebrity. Her performances were curtailed even further by a stroke in 1970 after which she lost the use of her legs. She died in 1973 after another stroke, on the eve of a scheduled recording session. ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------

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The Gospel Harmonettes.Dorothy Love Coates (January 30, 1928 – April 9, 2002) was an influential American gospel singer who rose to stardom in the 1950s as a member of The Original Gospel Harmonettes. With her "raggedy" voice and preacher's fire she could outsing the most powerful hard gospel male singers of the era. She was also a notable composer, writing songs such as "You Can't Hurry God (He's Right On Time)", "99 and a Half Won't Do" and "That's Enough".Born Dorothy McGriff in Birmingham, Alabama, her early years were hard, although she dismissed them as "the same old thing". Her minister father left the family when she was six, divorcing her mother thereafter. Dorothy began playing piano in the Baptist Church at age ten, then joined her sisters and brother in the McGriff Singers several years later.Dorothy quit school to work "all the standard Negro jobs" available in Birmingham in the 1940s: scrubbing floors and working behind the counter in laundries and dry cleaners. She began singing with the Gospel Harmonettes—then known as the Gospel Harmoneers—in the early 1940s. She married Willie Love of the Fairfield Four, one of the most popular quartets of the early years of gospel, but divorced him shortly thereafter. She subsequently married Carl Coates of the Sensational Nightingales over a decade later.That Gospel Harmonettes—later renamed the Original Gospel Harmonettes—had achieved some fame in an early appearance when the National Baptist Convention came to Birmingham in 1940. Led by Evelyn Starks, an amazing pianist whose style of playing was much imitated, composer and arranger, and featuring Mildred Madison Miller, a mezzo soprano who had a downhome sound that came to be a symbol of the group, singing as its lead singer, with Odessa Edwards, the clear voiced alto whose sermonettes could create a great deal of fervor at performances known as "catching the ghost", Vera Conner Kolb, the piercing soprano of the group whose high notes came with such ease that Marion Williams and other sopranos of the time period imitated her style, and Willie Mae Brooks Newberry, the group's deep-throated, low-singing anchoring alto, the group had a regular half-hour radio show sponsored by A.G. Gaston, a local businessman and community leader.The group first recorded for RCA in 1949, but without Dorothy Love, after appearing on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts television program. Those recordings while not particularly memorable, are considered a rare jewel nowadays and include the two songs "In the Upper Room" and "Move on Up a little Higher".Their first sides for Specialty Records—"I'm Sealed" and "Get Away Jordan"—recorded with Love in 1951 were far more successful, The group recorded a series of hits in the years that followed before disbanding in 1958.Dorothy was the driving force behind the group's success, both on record and in person, singing with such spirit that the other members of the group would occasionally have to lead her back to the stage—a device that James Brown copied and made part of his act in the 1960s, but which was wholly genuine in Love's case. She also took over the role, particularly after Odessa Edwards' retirement, of preacher/narrator, directing very pointed criticisms from the stage of the evils she saw in the church and in the world at large.During the years of her retirement, from 1959 to 1961, Dorothy Love—now Dorothy Love Coates—became active in the civil rights movement, working with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As she was fond of telling church audiences, "The Lord has blessed our going out and our coming in. He's blessed our sitting in, too." While many other gospel artists were slow to address political issues head-on, Coates spoke out against the war in Vietnam, racism and other evils.Coates was just as plain-spoken when criticizing the exploitative treatment that she and other gospel singers received from gospel promoters, both white and black. She reformed the Harmonettes in 1961 and later, when that group disbanded later in the decade, continued touring with a group known as the Dorothy Love Coates Singers. She recorded, both individually and with her group, on Savoy Records, Vee-Jay Records and Columbia Records in the 1960s and made occasional appearances but no recordings after 1970. She appeared in the films "The Long Walk Home" and "Beloved" at the end of her career.While Coates vigorously rejected all offers to cross over to pop or soul music, a number of artists, including Little Richard, imitated her sanctified singing style. Other secular songwriters drew on her songs for inspiration, sometimes simply taking the title, as in the case of Wilson Pickett's wholly different soul tune "99 and a Half Won't Do", and sometimes adapting both lyrics and title, as in the case of the Supremes's hit "You Can't Hurry Love".Coates died in Birmingham on April 9, 2002, of heart failure, at the age of 74.

I'd like to meet:

Sis.Rosetta Tharpe.Bro.Joe may & Jackie Verdell.The Caravans

Music:

Mahalia Jackson.Bro. Joe May.

Movies:

The Davis Sisters.Rev.Cleophus Robinson.While never achieving the commercial success of many of his contemporaries, the Rev. Cleophus Robinson was a prominent figure on the gospel circuit throughout the better part of the postwar era, perhaps best known for hosting a coast-to-coast gospel television series which ran for a quarter century. Born March 18, 1932 in Canton, Mississippi, according to family legend Robinson suddenly sang his first gospel song, "Who Will Be Able to Stand?" at the age of three; from that point on, he sang regularly while working in the cotton fields, influenced in great measure by his mother Lillie, a gospel shouter in the tradition of Mahalia Jackson whose own vocal prowess was renowned throughout the region. As a teen, Robinson gave his first solo recitals at St. John's Church of Canton; in 1948 he moved to Chicago, where he performed in a variety of area churches and appeared with the Roberta Martin Singers alongside Jackson herself.Through Evelyn Gay of the Gay Sisters, Robinson was introduced to Miracle Records chief Lee Egalnick, and in September 1949 he went into the studio to make his debut recordings. Credited as Bro Cleophus Robinson, he issued the single "Now Lord"; sales were unimpressive, and he soon relocated to Memphis, where he moved in with his uncle, the Reverend L.A. Hamblin (who in 1968 recorded the sermon "When God Walks Out of the Field" for the Jewel label). After finishing high school, Robinson began his own weekly radio show, The Voice of the Soul, and began regularly appearing with famous gospel artists as they passed through town, among them Brother Joe May, who became something of a mentor to the young singer. During the same period he began collaborating with pianist Napoleon Brown, who played with Robinson both on record and at live dates for the next several decades.In 1953, Robinson signed to the Houston-based Peacock Records, soon issuing the single "In the Sweet By and By"; he released several more efforts for the label, none of them hugely successful, before deciding to pursue a career as an actor. After enrolling as a drama major at Leymole College, he frequently found himself called away from his studies to promote his records; his grades suffered, and after a year he returned to music full-time. By 1956, Robinson's gospel career was in a rut, and he had yet to score a hit record; that all changed upon the release of "Pray for Me," a duet recorded with his sister Josephine James. A year later, he moved to St. Louis to accept a position with the Bethelem Missionary Baptist Church, resulting in an erratic recording schedule which ended with the 1962 release of the LP Pray for Me. Throughout the decade, Robinson also hosted his Hour of Faith weekly radio program; beginning in 1964, he also starred in his own gospel TV program.In 1962, Robinson signed to Battle Records, a subsidiary of Riverside, and there recorded a number of tracks backed by the Gospel Chimes before returning to Peacock in 1964. His first release after going back to the label, "Solemn Prayer," was that rare sermon record which became a major seller. Later that same year, he moved to Savoy, scoring another hit a year later with "How Sweet It Is to Be Loved by God"; by the end of 1965, he had again returned to Peacock, where his music adopted a bluesier flavor. After touring Europe, Robinson made yet another label change in 1969, this time jumping to Nashboro; there he scored his biggest hit ever with "Wrapped Up, Tied Up, Tangled Up," a crossover hit with white audiences as well. It led to a return engagement with Savoy in the 1970s, and in 1975 he appeared at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Robinson's pace slowed in the years to follow, although in 1980 he sang at the White House and in 1986 notched another hit with "Save a Seat for Me."